All That Glitters Isn't Salmon
by upperstories
Summary: A short Vanellope-centric drabble, set after the events of Wreck-It-Ralph. Life at the top may be good for your health, but sugar isn't exactly healthy at all.


A short Vanellope-centric drabble. Life at the top may be good for your health, but sugar isn't exactly healthy at all.

* * *

"It's so…"

The tart green ball stood at his loyal post at the foot of the royal— or should he say "democratic"— bed, his detached arms folded impatiently in front of him. It was an extravagant affair to say the least, all billowy and covered from stem to stern in candied charms and frills.

Vanellope gave it an experimental bounce, and frowned.

"…Pink?" she finished, sounding not even remotely impressed.

"Salmon," corrected Sour Bill, sound even less impressed than the little girl, "Your presidential-ness."

"It's pink. Everything is pink Billy," groaned Vanellope as she hopped off the rosy nightmare, giving the room a spin-around once-over, "Everything is so pink! And frilly! AND HUGE!"

Sour Bill merely rolled his eyes. The faint echo was not lost on him.

"Can't I just stay in my old place back in Diet Cola Mountain, Sour Bill?" keened the little elected official, petulantly, "I know it was just a bunch of scrap and junk but— well—it was a pretty nice pile of junk."

Sour Bill just stood by as his new— old, he had to remind himself— old charge proceeded to kick at a bit of dust that wasn't there, her lower lip protruding and arms folded in a pout.

He was wondering when he would begin to miss King Kandy.

"As much as I would love to let you go gallivanting around that dirty old unfinished racetrack—and believe me your grace nothing would give me the greatest pleasure— I'm afraid I can't," droned the majordomo gobstopper, a glare set heavy in his candied features, "It got burnt to a crisp when that behemoth friend of yours blew up Diet Cola Mountain."

Vanellope, defying all odds, managed to squelch a retort at the "behemoth" jab, obviously pointed at certain pal of hers who happened to wear overalls and was just the perfect size despite what certain pea-brains though thank-you-very-much.

"Oh… yeah…"

It was in fact and very unfortunately true. Ralph, for all of his good intentions—and anyone in their right mind would swear on those intentions to their motherboards— had saved hers and quite possibly ever Sugar Rush-ian's hides from pixelated peril, but at the cost of eighty-sixing her sweet little bachelorette pad. Vanellope didn't mind, not too much. It was a frustrating affair, but she supposed that losing a ramshackle home was small potatoes compared to losing the meat bag. Marginally.

In hindsight, Vanellope should have remembered to at least salvage those candy wrapper blankets when she stormed the exploding mountain-beacon. Granted, she had been a little distracted at the time with more pressing priorities, but…

She'd really _liked_ those candy wrappers. It had taken her quite a long while to collect them all.

"Well… you didn't have to make this place so big… and pink…" grumbled the once-vagabond.

"I didn't make this place in any shape or form, your excellency," droned Bill, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, "It was the programmers who designed this designated rest area for her former royal highness and all of the avatars of Sugar Rush—"

Vanellope wasn't listening at her candy butler continued to warble on with his useless knowledge of useless things. She was far too busy chewing on her hoodie pull-string—made of cherry licorice, her second favorite flavor—and staring aimlessly out the window at her collective states and provinces.

It had only been a few days since the evil Turbo King bug has been zapped into oblivion and Vanellope von Schweetz had almost sing-handedly Cinderalla'd her way from wrappers and to ritzy race tracks—literally, magical princess dress-changing sequence and all— and needless to say things were kind of grinding to a halt around here.

Now don't get a girl wrong, Vanellope was having the time of her life out on the race tracks. It was obvious the kids had taken a strong shine to her and her special talent of glitching them ahead of he curb. Vanellope had only rarely heard the magical sound of coins dropping into slots at her beck and call rather than Taffita or Candlehead, and the sound alone was almost as heart-pumpingly spectacular as the actual racing part. Life on the track was the life for her.

And that's not to say life off the track had been any less better off. Vanellope couldn't remember the last time she'd been invited to so many parties. Just this past week she had been to almost all of the other avatar's home-castles for sleepovers and ice cream socials and so forth— she'd barely had time to leave her own game yet. It was fun and all, but it was so… proper. It felt right, to be sure… at least according to Vanellope's reinstated pre-programmed memories…

But on another level, it was just… weird. Like when you take a bite of your favorite kind of chocolate cake only to find that the baker put extra nuts in the mix and used the wrong kind of frosting.

It wasn't like she missed the bullying and the mocking and the constant side-eyed glare from the other racers ad the always having to live in hiding for fear of capture. And so on. Vanellope could go on for the rest of her coded life without another one of those avatars—friends, she reminded herself, they were her _friends_— trashing her ride, pulling her hair, or pushing her in the mud, or telling her she was a mistake.

It was just something she was getting used to. Sure, she'd let Taffita and her gang off the hook with a false threat and a laugh, but… well… it's hard to just throw your arms down and put to bed the fact that your new best friends once treated you like dirt. Re-wired memories or not, those punches and kicks and Nesquick shoved in her nose still… it still stung.

And that wasn't even was bothered Vanellope the most.

What bothered Vanellope the most was how monopolizing the game was with her time. Not the racing per say, but the people. All of these parties and wandering aimlessly around the house and trying to sleep comfortably I a bed that didn't feel right and was too big and this whole dang castle wasn't right it was all just _too much._

She hadn't even been out of her own game twice this week.

And that one time was spent getting flagged down by security for something stupid. Random security search, her butt. Like that blue-face bobble head really needed to see an elected official's "papers".

All Vanellope wanted was a root beer float at Tapper's and a pair of candy wrappers.

Was that too much to ask?

She hadn't been out of her own game in _years_—it felt like— she could have at least been given the pleasure of breathing in the open circuitry, catch up with some friends outside of the game, maybe… swing by the 8-bit wing and…

…and… get a hug from a big pair of arms she found herself missing just the tiniest bit…

But uh ahem.

That was beside the point.

"—Am I boring you, Miss von Schweetz?"

Vanellope didn't even blink when Sour Bill's sour voice broke through her reverie. She did notice, to her disdain, that she had eaten almost all of her left licorice pull string. Again.

"Yeah," she said, turning her gaze from the neon-aqua sky to sneer disdainfully in Bill's body-face, "Just a little bit, Jeeves."


End file.
